A Paris court on Monday acquitted European manufacturer Airbus and airline Air France of involuntary manslaughter after the crash of a Rio de Janeiro-Paris connecting flight in 2009 that killed 228 people.
Nearly 14 years after the disaster, the Paris Criminal Court acquitted the two companies, ruling that, although there were “mistakes”, it “could not establish a causal link” with the accident involving flight AF447, an Airbus A330-200.
The accident led to lasting changes in aircraft safety practices as the official investigation found multiple factors contributed to the accident, including pilot error and icing on external sensors.
The victims’ families witnessed the decision being read out, with some crying, as they awaited a conviction from both companies, leaving them stunned, the France-Presse news agency (AFP) said.
The trial, which lasted about two months (October 10 to December 8, 2022), left the next of kin in anger and disillusionment.
Unusually, even the Attorney General’s Office defended the acquittal, admitting that the trial failed to provide sufficient evidence of criminal misconduct by the two companies.
The prosecution attributed the responsibility mainly to the pilots, who also died in the accident. Lawyers from Airbus also blamed pilot error and those from Air France argued that the true causes of the accident will never be known.
No one is in danger of arrest as only the companies face trial in what was the deadliest accident in French airline history.
Air France has already compensated the families of those killed, who come from 33 countries, mainly French (72) and Brazilian (58).
The A330-200 aircraft disappeared from radar on June 1, 2009 during a storm over the Atlantic Ocean, with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board.
It took two years to find the plane, which allowed the recordings in the black boxes, found on the bottom of the ocean, at a depth of more than 4,000 meters, to be recovered.
The first wreckage was found in the days following the accident, but most of the aircraft was not located until two years later after a long search.
The black boxes confirmed the starting point of the accident: ice on the “pitot” speed sensors while the aircraft was flying at high altitude in a difficult “turbulence” zone near the equator.
One of the co-pilots, disturbed by the effects of this failure, followed an upward trajectory and, in a state of incomprehension, the three pilots were unable to regain control of the aircraft, which came to a stop and crashed into the ocean 4.23 minutes later collapsed.
An investigation showed that in the months prior to the accident there had been repeated incidents involving similar sensors.
In court, Airbus committed “four imprudence or negligence”, specifically failing to replace the model of ‘pitot’ sensors known as “AA”, which seemed to freeze more frequently on the A330-A340 fleet, and the fact that it showed “information retention” of companies.
Air France has committed two “imprudence” related to the way it distributed an information letter to its pilots about the failure of the sensors.
In criminal law, however, according to the court, “probable causation is not sufficient to qualify an infringement.”
In this case, no causal link with the accident could be established with regard to the malfunctions.
During the trial, which ran from October 10 to December 8, 2022, the Public Prosecution Service asked for an acquittal, as the companies’ guilt was “impossible to prove”.
Source: DN
